Zaki al-Arsuzi

Zaki al-Arsuzi (June 1899-2 July 1968) was the founder of the Arab Ba'ath Movement and one of the founders of the philosophy of Ba'athism along with Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Michel Aflaq.

Biography
Zaki al-Arsuzi was born in June 1899 in Latakia, Ottoman Syria, Ottoman Empire to a family of Alawites. al-Arsuzi studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, where he became interested in nationalism, and he worked with the League of Nationalist Action during the 1930s before leaving the party in 1939 due to falling out with their beliefs. al-Arsuzi establish the Arab Ba'ath Movement in 1940 to advocate pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism, but by 1944 most of the members of the movement had joined Michel Aflaq's Ba'ath Party instead. In 1947, al-Arsuzi merged his party with the Ba'ath Party, but he did not attend the founding conference and was not a party member, He died in Damascus, Syria in 1968.